You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio the group while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
